We’ve been around coffee for most of our lives.

We know it as plants on the estate, cherries ripening on branches, picking, drying, bags of green coffee and the familiar rhythm of one harvest following another. As we move closer to roasting our own coffee, we’ve been spending more time understanding another side of it too: what all of that work eventually becomes in the cup.

We recently spent two days at an Advanced Coffee Tasting and Sensory Analysis workshop at the Coffee Board in Bengaluru, sharpening the way we taste, describe and evaluate coffee.

One of the foundations of sensory analysis is separating what we perceive in a cup from our personal preference for it. Rather than simply deciding whether we like a coffee, we worked more deliberately with aroma, acidity, sweetness, mouthfeel and aftertaste, learning to describe each with greater clarity and precision.

We began with discrimination exercises designed to sharpen sensory recognition. First with a reference and later blind, we identified differences between coffees before moving into more detailed descriptive evaluation.

With the flavour wheel and evaluation forms in front of us, the vocabulary became increasingly specific. Fruity could become berry, and berry could narrow further to blackberry, raspberry or strawberry. Nutty could become almond or hazelnut. Citrus could lead to lemon, lime or grapefruit. Mouthfeel had its own distinctions too, from creamy and silky to drying.

Our sheets quickly filled with observations, comparisons and notes from cup to cup.

What we started paying closer attention to

Sensory evaluation is also about understanding how the different attributes of a coffee work together. With acidity, for instance, we looked beyond intensity to its character and how it presented itself within the cup. A heavier body wasn’t automatically better than a lighter one, and a more intense attribute didn’t necessarily mean higher quality.

That distinction between intensity and quality was an important part of the two days. The aim is not simply to find more of something, but to describe what is there accurately and understand the cup as a whole.

Sweetness was another interesting part of the conversation. We tend to think of sweetness as something we simply taste on the tongue, but aroma can contribute to how sweet a coffee seems too. Fruity, caramel-like or vanilla-like aromas can influence our perception of sweetness, a reminder of how closely taste and smell work together when we experience coffee.

Back to the estate

For us, sensory training is another piece of understanding our coffee from beginning to end.

We already know it through the estate, as something we grow, harvest and process. Developing our sensory skills allows us to connect those decisions more closely with what we eventually experience in the cup.

And as we move towards roasting our own coffee, that becomes even more valuable. Being able to taste with greater precision helps us understand our coffees better, make more informed decisions about processing and roasting, and ultimately be more intentional about what we share with you.

Two days at the cupping table gave us a sharper vocabulary, a more structured way of evaluating coffee and plenty to take back to the estate.